you're so vain, i bet you think this unlocks about you

I'm not done powerleveling this offline profile to see the unlocks yet but here is what I have so far

Level    StartXP    EndXP        Reward
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1            0          90             Reese (Pilot, Orbital Strike) 3x Champ (Servo class)
2            90        300            Blink (Pilot, Teleport) 1x Servo slot + Champ
3            300       800           Hauk (Pilot, Pet) 1x Servo slot + Champ
4            800       1400         Juggernaut 'Brute' body and legs, 2x juggernaut pistons
5            1400     2100         NYI Vanity Item (nothing for now)
6            2100     3000         Kira (Pilot, Cheap Wells)

At 20xp base a game you can afk farm in Sandstorm PVP watching the poor bot suicide without dropping its dropship, takes about a minute a game. At this pace going from level 3-7 would take just over 2 hours, not including time in menus and fiddling around in drek's/hangar. Level 1-3 is easily done in campaign, especially if you do hard and insane on mission 1, and hard on mission 2. If you were playing normal games the xp per game would average 30-35xp/game with games ranging from about 5-12 minutes long, with proper games you nearly halve the number of games needed to level but increase the time per game about 8x. This works out to be about 10 hours of play time outside menus with normal games to reach level 7 from level 3.

If the XP to reach level 10 hasn't changed (5800) then it follows that it'd take upwards of 20 hours of PVP/coop games to reach level 10.

My final feedback on general speed of leveling/looting in beta 4 (I'll come back and post what I think about the level rewards when I get to 10):

In addition to loot earned you get 500 credits, 2000 scrap and 80xp for the first win on a campaign mission, per difficulty (normal, hard, insane). If this stays in place, you will have 2000XP on the completion of the campaign on normal, 4000 if you do the entire campaign on normal and hard. 6000 if you do all 3. This is 200xp more than the cap. You would be able to supplement this with multiplayer and botmatches that have AI that doesn't kill itself after a minute without dropping its dropship and not make supply drones.

I don't think I'd have any trouble leveling under those conditions. I don't know the time to level or whatever for doing that but frankly I wouldn't care if I were doing missions. Right now leveling for me is something I try to optimize away. Between level 3, where people get after exploring the campaign and a little skirmish, and level 10 where wondible and I got to, there is nothing but a lot of solo.

In summary leveling speed is probably about right, once the game is finished, right now past level 4 it is a chore that few do, and fewer have done it multiple times. I've only done so because I've always found a way to make it go very fast.

I'm sure you are well aware that there are 23 missing missions though. So on to loot.

The scrap and credits rewards from the campaign is spot on. I don't feel like I get enough scrap in skirmishes, I have too many items that sell for double digit scrap to get much out of vendoring them. It is improving with item level but I need to get to 10 to get a steady supply of level 5 items, highest I've gotten so far is 3. There seems to be a bug with the side missions, they don't award credits. If they were working, credits from doing skirmish would be much higher. However, I feel I have no shortage of new items from the postgame reward, and I am having lots of luck with crates.

I noticed something strange though, when doing my sandstorm afk grind I got a string of postgame rewards that came in pairs. As in, I'd get an item, then I'd get the same item the next game (they are different rolls of the same base though, not actual Dupes). I tried waiting a while to see if it is based off time but it doesn't appear to be. I will try doing a different map a few times in a row tomorrow to see if it happens elsewhere. But as you can see, items were coming in pairs.

Hmm, level 8 is cap now? You reach it at 4000xp. If that is the case, let me be the first to say: Woot.

Is that where cap should be at launch? I figure you need at least 1 more level for unlocking first Raptor chassis, then iunno another vanity thing or unique item?

My little table, complete now, for the guide I'll do later

Mission        Reward
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1                Champ missile pod, common, level 1
2                Darksun Pirate Faction in Skirmish (Doesn't seem to change portrait set anymore)

Level   XP      Reward
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1        0          Reese (Pilot, Orbital Strike) 3x Champ (Servo class)
2        90        Blink (Pilot, Teleport) 1x Servo slot + Champ
3        300      Hauk (Pilot, Pet) 1x Servo slot + Champ
4        800      Juggernaut 'Brute' body and legs, 2x juggernaut pistons
5        1400    NYI Vanity Item (nothing for now)
6        2100    Kira (Pilot, Cheap Wells)
7        3000    Kip (Pilot, Strip Mine)
8        4000    Comfy Pilot Chair (Unique item, does not drop, boosts pilot powers)

I mostly agree with the order of this, though the vanity item should really be level 7 or 8 instead of 5. I kinda wish cheap wells was Reese's power but it wouldn't fit the Lore I guess. Only because it is such a great power. Strip mine I hate having buried under a bunch of levels but that isn't too bad because his power is more of a weird PVP thing and I suspect most people leveling will be doing the campaign or coop.

While I'm on Kip, RIP Jugg, he was too Beautiful for this world. Kip might grow on me eventually, I can call his servo Uncle Clive after a giant fat mining tycoon here

lol now I've done that I think I'm starting to like Kip Korblass already.

These are the 2 new pilots and their power tooltips for anyone that wants to see them

And the level 8 reward

Also, Nice Crates are displaying the double behaviour too, when you get a good roll it owns, for example

At least I get to test if gladiators kill dropships in a few seconds with firmware + tech, but I really wish I were on my online profile instead when I rolled these >.<

edit: tested it out, still kinda OP. The cost is higher now but your income is so much higher as well.

It might be counterable by a fast beeline to aoe behemoths then using them defensively on both bases now income is way faster. It takes me about 2 mins to get this attack rolling and 3 minutes to get aoe behemoths, under perfect conditions. I still need to play PVP to really know whats really good.